


Tales By A Fire

by Krasimer



Series: Breaking Down Barriers (Being With You) [3]
Category: LazyTown
Genre: Backstory, Dad Robbie Rotten, Dad Sportacus (LazyTown), Depressed Robbie Rotten, Elf Sportacus (LazyTown), Fae & Fairies, Fae Robbie Rotten, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Past Character Death, Pre-Robbie Rotten/Sportacus, Supportive Sportacus (LazyTown), what happened to the parents of Lazytown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 10:18:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16911108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer
Summary: Sportacus.An elf, someone he should have potentially been afraid of. Someone he had spent quite some time trying to run out of town. A Numbered hero, he who should have reported Robbie for claiming a cluster of children like he had, if he hadn’t already done so.But there had been no other heroes knocking down his door.No invaders in his territory.No screams of fae-claimed children who were being pulled out of the territory and sent elsewhere. Away from each other. There would be a time for separation but in childhood was not that time.Childhood was meant for fostering friendships and siblings, meant for being safe and happy and having fun.





	Tales By A Fire

They were _his_ children.

Robbie felt his magic reach out and gentle a nightmare – Ziggy’s, if he wasn’t mistaken – and he sighed. The edges of the nightmare were smoothed down until they weren’t sharp at all anymore. The littlest of the children had been the easiest one to soothe, even back when he had first claimed them. Pixel had a sleep schedule a little too much like Robbie’s for how human he still was.

His newest daughter, Pinky, turned over in her sleep and Robbie sent out a reassuring wash of magic to her.

The mayor was too still in his sleep, even this long after the incident that had rid the town of every other adult. A few houses down, Bessie was the same. They both slept too still, too rigid, and it was less like a natural sleep and more like an unconsciousness like being hit over the head.

It still worried him.

They were adults, were not his little charges, the little children who were fae now, but he still worried over them. They had been the only survivors of that day, besides himself and the children. They were all that remained of the constant and the normal. Trixie’s mother and father, Pixel’s fathers, Ziggy’s mother, Stingy’s father—they had all been removed from the equation.

And now, Robbie thought as he turned his attention to the sky, there was another. He shivered slightly as the night air cooled around him.

Sportacus.

An elf, someone he should have potentially been afraid of. Someone he had spent quite some time trying to run out of town. A Numbered hero, he who should have reported Robbie for claiming a cluster of children like he had, if he hadn’t already done so.

But there had been no other heroes knocking down his door.

No invaders in his territory.

No screams of fae-claimed children who were being pulled out of the territory and sent elsewhere. Away from each other. There would be a time for separation but in childhood was not that time.

Childhood was meant for fostering friendships and siblings, meant for being safe and happy and having fun. Meant for learning how to survive in the world as what they were, now. Robbie hummed to himself and looked back to the stars. Sportacus’s airship drifted slowly closer.

These were the days the children needed the most.

The hero had anchored his ship for a few minutes before setting it to circle the town, a gentle patrol. He had explained to Robbie, recently, that it was meant to keep the worst of the dangers away. The things that Robbie could fight but would be exhausted unnecessarily by. It seemed, for all the world, like he had been telling the truth when he had told Robbie that he had only come to help him be a parent to the children.

Only a short distance away, Robbie could see the cluster of small bodies wrapped in sleeping bags and hidden away inside a large tent.

The fire that was still burning in the middle of their camp cast their shadows against the side of the tent and Robbie smiled as he watched them sleeping from a distance. He had turned down their offer to camp with them, choosing instead to let them spend the night with Sportacus at the edge of the woods.

That did not mean, however, that he needed to stay away completely.

In just a couple of steps, with a snap of his fingers, he was at the fireside with the elf. Sportacus only looked up to smile at him before turning back to the fire. “I was wondering if you would come to visit them,” he whispered. “They got to sleep easily and wonderfully. I heard one of them tossing around a few seconds ago, but they settled before I could go check on them.”

“Ziggy was having a nightmare,” Robbie muttered back. “I smoothed it out.”

“You’re doing a wonderful job as a father,” Sportacus’s smile was still bright and almost enchanting as Robbie watched him poke at the flames gently with a stick.

Robbie curled himself down to a sitting position and dropped onto the log next to Sportacus. “I’m just trying to make sure they make it to adulthood,” he shrugged. “I don’t think I can do much more than that.” He reached forward and snagged the bag of marshmallows that his children had left behind when they had gone to sleep. “I don’t think anyone can.”

“Still.”

With a deep breath, Robbie did his best to control the red he could feel on his cheeks. The gentle praise that Sportacus occasionally gave him was something he wasn’t used to. Sportacus handed him a slim metal stick, meant for toasting marshmallows, and the both of them sat in silence for a while longer.

“Their parents were lovely people,” Robbie said after what felt like a short eternity.

Sportacus didn’t move but Robbie knew he had his attention.

Taking a deep breath, Robbie slid four marshmallows onto the metal stick and held it out over the fire. “They were kind people. I had been something of an outsider, a fae that had come in from the forest and chosen to live peacefully on the edge of town. They knew what I was and they all still welcomed me into the town.” He hunched over his knees, turning his marshmallows so that they wouldn’t burn. “The entire town was kind. It wasn’t something I was used to.

“And one day…One day, someone got sick. Someone else got injured,” Robbie frowned, trying not to remember what they had looked like in the end. “Things kept happening, people kept ending up injured or sick. It was like a plague had come to our little town and just…Settled in.”

Trixie’s parents had been the first deaths.

His companion still wasn’t saying a word but Robbie could feel his eyes on him. “Ziggy was only two or three when it happened,” he hissed the words out. “Fae don’t exactly count years the same as humans do, but their birthdays are important. They get birthday parties until the day I die, if I have anything to say about it.” He shook his head. “But their parents…It was like someone had looked at our town and chosen it for a slaughter. I found the mayor and Bessie in their homes. It was like they were about to die, when I found them – I couldn’t claim them as charges, they are far too old for that—but I did my best to heal them. It has been a handful of years, four if I remember correctly, and they are only just starting to recover from whatever happened.

“Stingy’s father was the only one I was happy to see go,” Robbie sighed and removed his marshmallows from the fire. “He actually harmed his child, but the others had been such good parents. Milford and Bessie only just survived and then, suddenly, I had four children. Milford and Bessie were not in fit states to take care of themselves, much less the children. I perhaps should have let the other humans know, the ones in the next town over, but this is my territory.” He looked at Sportacus and noticed his eyes were tearing up. “This is my home.”

“And you can’t let others run rampant in your home,” Sportacus smiled at him again. “Especially when you don’t know how or why the other parents died.”

“Exactly,” Robbie shuffled around a bit and pulled the first toasted treat off the stick, chewing it slowly.

“I still think you’re doing a fantastic job,” Sportacus offered up the praise again. “You kept those you could alive. Did—“ he paused. “I almost do not want to ask, but were the children directly attacked like the adults were?”

“Ziggy and Stingy had marks on their wrists,” Robbie scowled at the ground. “I recognized them as the marks of a claim. I don’t know who claimed them, but I knew I couldn’t let that happen. I had to flood their little bodies with magic, wash out the claims. Stingy almost had a seizure, Ziggy cried until I finally managed to get him to sleep.”

And there was the reason he could have Sportacus around.

The moment he had said those words, the elf had gone stiff and anger had washed over his face. Robbie could remember it like it had just happened, the way Stingy’s wrist had been a raw color, deep-red lines curling across the pale flesh. Ziggy’s had been much the same, a point of damage on his tiny little baby wrist. For Sportacus, imagining was probably worse than reality.

Robbie reached out and took the elf’s hand in his own, hoping to soothe him as well as he had his children. “Back then, they used their full names.”

“What you’re considering their True Names,” Sportacus took a couple of deep breaths before his smile returned and he clasped their hands gently together, squeezing for a second. “Do you mind if I know?”

“I know you won’t harm them,” Robbie smiled back. “But…”

“You know I won’t,” Sportacus nodded.

“You must _never_ speak their names aloud in such a way that harm comes to them,” Robbie felt the Deal curling around them.

“I will not.”

The Deal popped and snapped as it came fully into being, an electricity flaring along their connected hands.

“Their names are Sebastian, Siegfried, Beatrix, and Phillip,” Robbie turned to look at the tent. “And they are my children, now. That is…Most of the reason I fought so hard to get you to leave. There were some other reasons, including but not limited to the fact that I thought you were going to take them away, chase me away, and possibly try to turn them back to human.”

Sportacus lifted Robbie’s hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. “They are too far along for that,” he chuckled.

Pulling his hand back, Robbie shoved his last three marshmallows into his mouth all at once.

The kiss had been unexpected and he didn’t know what to make of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh look, Robbie's beginning to trust Sportacus with the children. 
> 
> And they're finally getting closer to somewhere with their relationship. 
> 
> Plus, some backstory about what actually happened.


End file.
